Haggai 1:12-15 All Stirred Up

Of Recast Church from Madawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his series on the book of Haggai, Realigning Priorities. Let's listen in.

The Church Gathered to Grow in Faith, Community, and Worship

Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here, and we gather together this morning to grow in our faith, amen? Hope that that's why you're here, is to grow in faith. Hopefully you can look around and see that you're not alone, and that gives you strength and courage to face another week.

I recognize that a lot of times it can feel like we're going it alone out there, and the week presses in, and the world presses in, and we come together to get kind of a reset on our week, and so I hope that that's what you're getting here.

We also gather together to join our voices in praise to the only one who is worthy of praise, the only one who is worthy of our adoration and our accolades. We come to hear from God's own word. He wrote it so that we might know what is true of him.

The lies will crowd out all kinds of stuff in our lives, and there are so many various types of lies that we tell ourselves, that the world tells us, that the media tells us, and we need to come back again to be re-centered on the truth of God's word.

Here at Recast, we're seeking to grow in faith, grow in community, and grow in service, and those are vital, and so here this morning, growing in faith, but then afterwards, we get an opportunity to grow in community, just rubbing shoulders with one another, playing some games out there in the yard and all of that kind of stuff, eating together.

I'm looking forward to that. I really do mean it when I say I love Sundays. Most of you know this. I've said this up front many times. I struggle with stage fright, and for years, that was a major, major hurdle for me becoming a pastor.

That's kind of ironic that I'm up here, and all of a sudden, I'm thinking about it, but I love Sundays despite the fact that that was a big hurdle and a big struggle. I love the gathering of God's people.

I absolutely love you guys, and I mean that sincerely. We're gonna be back in the book of Haggai this morning, and we're gonna see that his message last week, the message that we talked about last week, to consider your ways, God speaking through Haggai to the people, consider your ways, and it was successful, and they did.

They have considered their ways now when we come to this passage this morning, and this place is Haggai in the rare category of successful prophets. Those two words don't go together frequently in Scripture.

Successful prophet. He shares this with the likes of Jonah, and only a select other few prophets that were successful in declaring God's word and the people repenting and turning from their sins and heeding what God had to say.

Jeremiah didn't get that treatment, neither did Isaiah, neither did Ezekiel. They were actually persecuted for speaking God's word, but we will see in our text this morning the response of the people to the command of God to consider their ways.

As far as introducing the text, it's good to look at the actions that take place. This is gonna be a short passage this morning, so looking at those actions are helpful for us to understand the structure.

Watch the people. Watch what they do. They obey, and they fear, and they work. Watch the prophet. He faithfully speaks all of the truth that God gives him to convey, and watch what the Lord does. Whenever you read scripture, watch for what God is doing in it, and here we're gonna see him send.

We're gonna see him speak. We're gonna see him comfort, and we're gonna see him stir up hearts, and that's my, by the way, that's my fundamental prayer for all of us this morning is that he would stir up our hearts, awaken us, stir us up from within.

Our text is short, but it reveals a lot about the faithfulness of God to call out a people for his own glory. That's what he's doing here, even in our midst, and it also highlights the need for his people to respond to his word.

Respond to his word. Respond. Before we read this, let me throw out a common problem that this passage is seeking to address for us. The people of God down through the ages have had a tendency to hear God's word, agree that something must change, something's gotta change, and then go about our daily lives without changing a single thing.

It reminds me of what James says in his little epistle about looking in a mirror. You wake up in the morning. Imagine that you wake up in the morning all disheveled. You look in a mirror, and it's like, man, my hair is all over the place, and I got smudges on my face, and a new zit is formed, and all kinds of stuff, and then I just go, like, get dressed and go, and I don't change anything.

Nothing changes, and that's what it's like when we come to the Bible without any change, without doing something about it. Well, there's a comb, there's a brush, there's all different kinds of things to change if we would take into account God's word.

There's a huge danger for all of us in becoming just flippantly familiar with God's word, to become inoculated to God's word. It's good to hear it. It is a good thing when we take it in. It is a good thing to memorize it, to study it, to know it, and yet it is a much, much, much better thing to heed it, to pay attention to it in a way that leads to obedience, to be changed in the believing of it.

That's what we mean when we talk about growing in our faith is taking God's word and living it out, to hear his word, believe it, and then realign our lives accordingly. This sermon series, the short sermon series in Haggai is actually called Realigning Priorities because that's exactly the call through this ancient text by the prophet Haggai.

God is speaking to us. Before we read it, think about it. God is going to speak to us, each one of us, and he is calling us all to a loving obedience to him, an obedience that trusts his goodness, an obedience and a trust that knows that he is with us and he is for us, church, an obedience that highlights a mysterious glory here in the text.

Our father, through his loving faithfulness, stirs up his people to an obedience from the heart. So let's open our Bibles. If you're not already there, open your devices to Haggai chapter one. We'll be looking at just verses 12 through 15.

So these four verses here, Haggai 1, 12 through 15, God's holy word to us recast. This is what he desires for us to take in. This is God speaking to us to stir us up this morning. Then Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God.

And the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people feared the Lord. Then Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, spoke to the people with the Lord's message. I am with you, declares the Lord.

And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people.

And they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts, their God, on the 24th day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king. Let's pray. As the band comes up to lead us in worship.

Father, we're all awake here. Whether an alarm went off, or we just naturally wake up at the same time every morning, we were awakened to a new day, a new opportunity to bring glory to you. Happens to be a Sunday, so here we are, gathered together in your name.

But we recognize that we need more than just an awakening of our bodies. We need an awakening of our souls. We need a stirring up within us to recognize your holiness, your worthiness, your presence with us, both for conviction and for encouragement.

The things that you desire to change in us are real, and I pray that you would help us all to recognize that, even as we're gathered together in this place. Diverse people with a bunch of different backgrounds, a bunch of different histories, a bunch of different things going on in our weeks.

Concerns about the future, concerns about the past, concerns about relationships that are either broken or are healing, concerns about health. Father, so many things that press in and would seek to snatch this message from our hearts, but Father, I pray that you would stir us up to your glory, stir us up to your worship, stir us up in a way that awakens us to you.

Father, even through these songs and through these lyrics, I ask that as we have an opportunity to mingle our voices together and worship to you this morning, I pray that you would stir us up in the singing, in the gathering of your people, in the opportunity that we have to rejoice, in the sacrifice that has been made to draw us near to you, and that you are indeed with us.

You are with your people. You are here present to receive our worship, and I ask that you would receive it in the gladness with which it's offered in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, yeah, go ahead and be seated and re-find your place in your Bibles or your devices in Haggai chapter one, verses 12 through 15.

If at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee, juice, or donut holes, I think there's a lot more back there, so take advantage of that. You're not gonna distract me, but our goal is over the remainder of our time to spend focused on God's word.

This short little book describes a historical realignment of God's people to God as priority, not just merely to doing things, and I think sometimes we can have a tendency to go, okay, if God meets me, then there's a bunch of stuff I need to go do, but if God meets with you, he becomes the priority.

He becomes the thing. Now, that is going to result in some action. That's gonna result in some behavior. True faith in God and seeing him as he is, glorious and exalted, is gonna lead to God being not just a priority, but the priority in your life.

The context in this passage is that the people of God are returning to the land of Israel. They're coming back from the land of Persia after a couple of generations of being exiled there, so it's likely that the people that are returning to the land never actually were in it to begin with.

Their parents came over to Babylon and their grandparents rather were exported, exported, that's not the right word, exiled to, yeah, same idea, but people versus goods, I think. They were exiled there, grandparents exiled there, and now we've got a generation of people returning to the land, and when they first returned, they were given an important command that makes sense of the entire book of Haggai.

They were given a command by God through Ezra, really, Ezra records it for us, it was actually the mouth of the pagan king Cyrus that was used to give this edict to the people of God, and it was an edict for them to return to their land, rebuild their temple, and reestablish the worship of their God there.

Now we know that that is a covenant relationship, that's the old covenant of the sacrificial system that was involved in that temple sacrifice and all of that, so they started the building project when they first got back under the instructions of God, and then as you might imagine, as you can imagine it being possible, the project got stalled out as the pressure of taking care of themselves crept in.

Instructions by God, build my temple, gets crowded out by them building stuff for themselves. Last week we saw the indictment against the people of God that they're busy running around fixing up their own homes and living in opulent paneled houses, the text tells us they are taking care of themselves, they are taking care of their own digs at the exclusion of the instructions that God gave to take care of his house first.

So while the temple is still in a pile of rubble, they are busy, busy, busy taking care of their own places to live. His instructions to the people was to consider their ways, that's what we saw last week repeated twice, they have lacked peace, they have lacked satisfaction, they have lacked joy because they have not put God and the worship of him as the highest of priorities.

They are miserable because they're not worshiping, they are miserable because they're designed and made to worship, they're instructed to worship, they're commanded to worship, and they're not doing that which God has designed them to do.

So that's where we stand when we come to verse 12 here in our text, that catches up to speed a little bit. Haggai has spoken the word, the word of God to the leadership of Israel, that is the governor's rubble and Joshua the high priest, the call was to consider their ways and then get back to building the temple.

And the Lord threatened drought as part of that call to return to him, we'll talk a little bit more about that threat here in a minute. But so our text this week, in our text, we're gonna see three movements that really make our outline.

And it's again, it's a short passage, but there's three points. The response of the people, verse 12, the response of the prophet, verse 13, and the response of the Lord, verse 14, 15, being a little bit of just a date there that gives us the timeline for this.

So the response of the people, the response of the prophet and the response of the Lord. Now remember that the central command from God to the people last week was a repeated call, twice mentioned, consider your ways and just a few verses there.

It was, you know, when they recorded this on ink and parchment and chiseled it out, it all came into, it was all valuable, but two times the prophet says, consider your ways. Obedience to this command, if they are actually gonna follow through on what God has told them to do through Haggai, then they must consider their ways, this thoughtful reflection on how they've been living and how that's been going for them is part of the obedience that they must have taken on.

And so the obedient responses must involve a first step of considering, take a minute to think, and then the second step of action. And I would suggest to you that God really does desire that of us, stop and think, stop and listen, stop and heed, consider your life, consider how it's going for you, consider if it's actually comfortable the way that you're living in.

Are you really pleased? Are you really satisfied? Or are you living in dissatisfaction with opulence, with plenty, and you're still dissatisfied? Always enough to drink, but never satisfied. Always enough to eat, but always hungry.

Always enough material things, but always wanting just a little bit more. So we see the response of the people of God to the call of God to return to a more central worship of God. That's our first point.

The response of the people is a response of the people of God to the call of God to return to the more central worship of God. The governor Zerubbabel and Joshua, the high priest, along with all the remnant of the people took to heart the voice of the Lord, their God, as spoken through the words of Haggai, the prophet.

They took it to heart, we see in verse 12. And verse 12 expressly states emphatically that Haggai is a chosen mouthpiece for God. He is a prophet. The text goes over the top to emphasize that he is prophetic, he is speaking on God's behalf.

It's even reiterated in verse 13, where he is the messenger who brings the message of God. The terminology that's used in Hebrew is emphatic. You need to pay attention to this guy because he's speaking the very words of God.

The prophetic designation is very important if God's people are gonna have confidence in the command. How many of you know that you gotta have some confidence that God is speaking, for example, through the Bible in order to obey it?

Otherwise, scrap it, right? But if this is God's word, if God speaks, and if his spirit has laid this down with pen to parchment, then this is valuable, this is important, this is significant, this is central to our lives.

And that's what is being said of Haggai here to give us confidence, but most importantly, to give those ancient people confidence that this is indeed a dude who is speaking God's words. And they are convinced that this man is chosen by God to speak for him, and they respond in verse 12 with two primary responses.

First, they obeyed. It says that in the text, they obeyed. This phrase has a nuance of taking the word of the Lord to heart. They did pause. They did take some time to consider their ways as commanded by God through the prophet Haggai.

They did reflect on the neglect of the worship of God. They did consider their disobedience and leaving the temple in ruins while running around fixing up their own houses. And they must have also considered the way that this was resulting in some significant dissatisfaction in their own lives.

The prophet told them, your dissatisfaction is coming because of your lack of worship. They were missing joy, missing gladness, and never quite feeling fulfilled in the good things that they had. And in considering, they are moved to the second response.

So they take a moment, they think it through, and they go, like, here's what the prophet is saying to us. Here's what God is kind of putting his finger on in our lives and saying, you're dissatisfied.

You're not following through. You're not really putting me first. And the second response is then it says the people feared the Lord. Do you see that at the end of verse 12? The people feared the Lord.

I want us all to consider the way that this often goes in our lives. Because to be quite honest, some of you are like, should I be afraid of God? Should I not be afraid of God? I thought that Jesus died on the cross for my sins.

And you might just kind of live in that moment and think there's some confusion. How many of you would raise your hand and say, I'm sometimes a little confused about the phrase, fear the Lord, the fear of the Lord.

Some of you sometimes confused about that. I think it's a reasonable thing for us to be concerned about that we might not necessarily get. For a sinful human, think about how this works. For a sinful human to pause and consider our ways.

If we obey that, if you went this week and you took that on as a actual like application point from last week's message and you went and you did that, I have the feeling that I have some understanding about how that went for you.

I don't think it was easy for you. I think it was uncomfortable for you. For a sinful human to pause and consider our ways. If we obey that command, we will to a person be called up short of God's glory, short of what it means to truly worship him, short of what we know to be true from God's word as far as his glory and his honor and the obedience he is due and the praise that he's due and the worship that is due him.

How many of you know what I'm talking about? When you really think about your life, when you take the quiet moment, which is really hard for us to do, right? But when you take the quiet moment and you assess, how many of you would raise your hand and say, I come up short when I do that?

Like I see conviction, I see need for change, I see need for more worship, more love for him, more love for each other, more obedience. I see that in my life. I'm telling you, that's the reality for me.

If I get alone quiet and get alone, walk in the woods alone, I walk away feeling a little beat up. Do you know what I'm talking about? And what's the logical response to that? Well, when we come to realize, when we come to consider our ways, we realize just how broken we really are.

And in our moments of considering, God will be faithful to identify for us the places where we are neglecting his worship. He will put a finger on our sin. God has always been faithful. If I ask him, God, show me where I'm failing, show me where I'm walking away from you, show me where I'm not with you.

He's faithful to do it. He does it. And it's not very comfortable. And to be quite honest, I wonder if that is not a part of the reason that we are such a busy, noisy, loud culture. Always something, always a podcast on, always the radio on, always something making noise.

Never wanting quite to be alone with our thoughts. Anybody relate to what I'm talking about there? Always active, always busy. If I have a moment to spare, fill it up with Candy Crush or something. Well, take a breath and a pause.

That could be really scary. To take a moment to ask, God, what do you really think of how I'm living? What do I really think about how I'm living in light of God's word? I think we're fearful of being exposed and that he's gonna expose sin in our lives.

And I think that's in part what keeps us from the quiet moments of reflection to consider our ways. Now, I wanna remind us all that this passage is written to the remnant, it says in the text, to the remnant of God's people.

That's an interesting word, remnant. The word remnant is a semi-technical word in the Old Testament that routinely refers to those people that God is holding onto for himself, his chosen people, those in whom he delights and those who delight in him.

These are his chosen people. There's another way, this is another way in the Old Testament of basically saying his true church, those who really worship him, those who really love him, those who really are seeking to live according to his plan and his way, and actually with some emotion attached to it, with some love attached to it, not just merely to get the things that they want out of God, but because he's worthy.

The remnant is a saved group out of the masses of people. That's the idea of remnant, those that are left. If you were to boil everything else off and you were to get down to the nitty gritty of who's in love with God and who's all in with him, that would be the remnant.

Most of the Jewish people for over 100 years of history coming up to leading up to Haggai's moment, up to his day, most of the Jews had gone through some type of routine cultural religious actions. They did the things, they made the sacrifices, they offered the prayers, they read the Psalms, they did all of the stuff.

They did the things while the indictment of many of the prophets are you do all of these things, but your hearts are far from me. It's an indictment on the masses of the religious people, God's chosen people, the ones who were supposed to get it, the ones who were given the law.

But the remnant are the people who God is bringing into his love. They love him because they recognize his love and care for them. And in that sense, we can look around at the world today and we can even look at church and say, well, there's a remnant.

There are those who love God. And we recognize that at any given point, a church is made up of people who love God and then there are people who are playing church. So two distinct groups of people that look very much alike.

And only you know which one you are. I don't, I preach to you as though you are the remnant, as though you are the children of God, as though you are all in with him, but I can't see the difference. The spirit can press in on you whether you love Jesus or don't.

Do you love him and are you loved by him? Do you recognize what he's done for you? And are you being stirred up in passion and love to worship him because of what he's done for you? Are you living in that place?

This message then, well, in this sense, the application, our application is more focused on those who are in the love of God through Jesus Christ, his son. That's who this passage is applying to in our, if we take it from the old covenant remnant, we take it to the New Testament era and even our era where we live.

This is not God speaking to pagans about how to get right with him. This is not a message to the unbeliever saying, build me a temple, get busy doing stuff. And if you do the things, and then you're gonna be all right with me.

This is God speaking to those who have experienced and received his covenant. This message is then more narrowly focused on those who are genuinely already all in with God. And he is faithfully calling them.

And therefore he is faithfully calling us back into a priority of obedient worship. You see, the one who really loves God can stray. Did you know that? The one who really loves God can wake up one morning and realize like, I'm not giving, I'm not putting Christ where he belongs in my life.

And so I ask you, why fear? Why fear? Why is fear in this text to the remnant, to those who are chosen by God, to those who are in with him, why fear? And I would suggest to you that wherever an accurate assessment of ourselves is coupled with an accurate assessment of the Almighty, fear is a logical response.

It makes sense. It makes sense if you understand who you are and who God is, that there's fear in that equation. Do you get what I'm saying? Raise your hand if you can understand that correlation. You see where that connects.

I am not worthy to even enter his presence. I deserve to be smoked if I even just enter his presence with his holiness and his glory and his majesty. Well, fear seems to make a lot of sense. What did Adam and Eve first do after they had taken the fruit and gained the knowledge of good and evil?

Their eyes were opened and they saw, oh, there is something, there is something that is against God. There is a way of living that is against God, knowledge of good and evil. And it was then that they hid in fear from God.

Before that, there was perfect love. Before that, there was no fear between God and humanity. It says that he would come down and kill you. He would come down and walk with them in the cool of the evening in the garden, God walking with his people.

But sin produces fear because it produces the knowledge of judgment deserved. We begin to realize what we deserve. The people fear in this text because they've considered, because they have taken a moment of pause to think about their lives in light of a holy God.

And they know that their ways have come up short of bringing pleasure and glory to God as the text, as Haggai called the people. He says, if you would just reenter and reengage this relationship with God and reestablish the things that he's called you to and begin that process of rebuilding his temple, then that will give him pleasure and glory.

They've not been living out of the design and call that God has placed on their lives. They are made to worship. They are designed to praise him and they're not doing it. But I wanna point out that a movement toward fear is a movement toward awe and wonder and respect for us sinful humans.

It is sensible, it is logical. It's a byproduct of correct assessment of our lack of holiness and his character of complete holiness. But hear me carefully, church. You're gonna have those moments. That's gonna be real for you where you are going to have fear because you're not holy, because you're not what God has made you to be.

That's one thing that I know about everybody in this room. I know that many of you, if not most of you, I pray that all of you are actually declared righteous in God's eyes through the blood of his son, Jesus Christ.

Amen? I also know that you don't live that. I know that none of you do. Not a single one of you do. And when we meet another human, one thing that we know we're meeting is another sinner, another person who is broken and is busted.

And so I know that if you have a desire to please God, there are times when you're disappointed with yourself and you're at least mildly fearful. Am I okay? Am I really okay? Can that thought cross my mind and me be okay?

You know what I'm talking about? I think we all know, but God doesn't leave us in fear, church. We'll experience it. We'll have it from time to time. It's logical when we assess. It's logical when we see him in his glory.

Whew. Oh, how's this gonna go down? Isaiah, seeing the Lord seated on his throne, high and lifted up. And what does he do? Falls flat on his face as the angels are singing, holy, holy, holy. And he says, woe is me.

I'm undone. This is a prophet. I haven't written any scripture. Have you? This is the prophet Isaiah. Big chunk of scripture written through him. And he says, I'm undone. I'm broken. I'm busted. I'm expecting the lightning to strike any second for me to be toast.

That's his response in the presence of God. Reasonable fear. A reasonable fear of justice and judgment. But in our return to him, God doesn't leave us there. When we come into contact with his word, conviction is often a regular response.

That's true. But God also includes on the mouth of his messenger the peace our hearts need to hear in those moments of fear. Not only does Haggai call the people to consider their ways, not only does he threaten the discipline of the Lord, but in the second movement of the text, we find the second thing, the response of the prophet in verse 13.

Haggai is faithful, faithful, faithful to bring the whole counsel of God. And that counsel includes the glorious hope that God is with his people. The words of Haggai, the messenger of God in verse 13, reflect the actual message of Yahweh.

Jehovah, our God. These are God's very words spoken to his old covenant remnant in the fall, the autumn of 520 BC. And he comforts them in their fear with the following very direct phrase. I am with you.

I'm with you. But do you think he knew that they were fearful? Do you think that he knew that they were terrified? Do you think that they were, he knew that they were paralyzed in awe and wonder of him?

Yes. And he says, I'm with you. I'm with you. Now I wanna point out that there is one way that his people received that phrase, and there's another way that those who do not trust his goodness process that phrase, and they are very different ways.

When God says, I am with you, you either think one, you think one of two thoughts. I'm with you can sound very threatening to the one who doesn't know the kindness, mercy, and covenant faithfulness and steadfast love of our father.

If you don't know that about him, I am with you sounds like a threat. I thought that for years. Whenever I thought God is with me, I thought, oh no. When I was a kid, I heard that a lot, and I was like, oh, God's watching.

And if you have a parent that kind of reminded you that God was watching you, you know, he's watching you. Sounds threatening to the one who doesn't know the kindness and the mercy and the covenant faithfulness of God.

But to the one who hasn't tasted, to see the Lord is good, I am with you is a very scary phrase. But to those who know the great mercy and kindness and patience of our God, those who have tasted and seen that he is good, his presence is a joy.

It is an empowering, refreshing, like a stream in a dry and desert place. His presence, his promise of presence. It's like a KFC buffet after a long day of hiking up and down a mountain. Real experience that I had, I had to crush that buffet.

It's like all light and all hope and all help and all rescue when everything seems hopeless and he breaks into rescue. I am with you like that. The response of the prophet is to keep speaking his words, to not end with the bad news, but to share the full glory of God.

He is worthy of our worship. It is reasonable to be moved to fear in our hearts when we fail to obey, but there is great strength found in the reminder that our God is faithful to be with his people. He will be present to sustain, church.

He will be present to help. He will be present to forgive. He will be present to restore. He will be present to do the last thing that we see in this text. And really the center of which everything revolves in verse 14, we encounter the response of the Lord to this movement among his people and we find that he is driving the movement among his people.

The Lord, Yahweh, the almighty Lord of hosts, as he said it, as it was declared twice last week and once this week, the Lord of hosts, God of all the angel armies, the God who is over all of the armies of heaven stirs up the spirit of his people to action.

He stirs up. He is shown here in the text to stir up the hearts of individual people, Zerubbabel, Joshua. He can steer the hearts of kings. He can stir the heart of Pharaoh. He can stir up the heart of the prophets to proclaim.

And here he stirs up the governors Zerubbabel and the high priest Joshua and all the remnant of the people. He stirs them up. The phrase stirred up is an awakening word. Not like stirring a pot, not that kind of stir.

Not even like stirring hot coals, although that's a metaphorical use of this idea of reawakening a fire is kind of the idea. It's like his people have fallen asleep to the work that he has for them. That possible church that that's us, the people of God asleep to his worship day in and day out.

And they have to be reawakened to his will. The prophet comes to awaken the people with the word of God. God desires to awaken his people. And I don't know about you, but I awaken in the morning and still need to be stirred.

You know what I'm talking about? I awaken in the morning, I go get my cup of coffee. And even with that much caffeine, I still need to be stirred. I still need my soul awakened. You know what I'm talking about?